Hello and welcome back to picsandportraits.
This is exciting.
This is a very exciting video as it is our first requested by a patron, over at patreon.com/picsnportraits.
For their subject, they have chosen pulp science fiction.
We are going to be looking at sci-fi and how it appeared in pulp magazines, from the late
1910s until the genre’s peak in the 1950s.
But first, I want to take a quick trip through the origins of science fiction.
In a way, science fiction is as old as fiction itself.
In fact, many cite the Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest surviving work of literature, as
the first piece of science fiction.
The Sumerian poem featured gods and mythical beasts but feels more akin to the modern definition
of fantasy rather than science fiction.
Another piece of ancient poetry, Indian poet Valmiki’s Ramayana, featured floating structures
and supernatural weapons capable of destroying entire cities.
While both of these are often discussed as proto-scifi, we find a much more familiar
progenitor in Lucian of Samosata’s A True Story.
This second century novel was written as a satirical farce and included a trip to the
moon, as well as a battle between the aliens found living there and ones from the sun.
When we think about what exactly defines science fiction, certain scenes or tropes come to
mind, most of which appeared elsewhere long before that term was ever coined.
A True Story’s depictions of space travel and alien lifeforms are believed to be the
first of their kind, though similar themes appear in Arabic folklore, alongside descriptions
of brass robot-like figures and underwater civilizations.
An early example of my favourite subgenre, time travel, can be seen in Urashima Tarō,
the Japanese fairytale dating back to the 8th century in which a fisherman saves a turtle.
As a reward, the turtle brings him to an underwater palace.
There, he meets a princess who gives him a box he is never to open.
When he returns to his village a few days later he finds himself three hundred years
in the future, his family and friends gone.
Opening the box, he is immediately transformed into an old man.
Throughout the Age of Enlightenment we see authors begin to speculate on what the future
may hold.
In 1516, Thomas More’s Utopia gave name to the perfect society and Samuel Madden’s
1733 novel Memoirs of the Twentieth Century envisioned the political landscape of the
1990s.
In 1818, we get the definitive welcome with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which, yes,
featured a mad scientist but more importantly moral reasoning.
Speculating on the ethical repercussions of our advancement has long be a cornerstone
of science fiction, be it the trust placed in A.I. in 2001 or in Frankenstein’s case,
the creation of life.
A lot people know Shelley exclusively for Frankenstein, though she also wrote other
seminal sci-fi works, including The Last Man, one of the earliest examples of a post-apocalyptic
future.
The term scientific romance appeared in the mid-19th century to describe the writing of
French author Jules Verne.
Verne’s novels presented exciting and adventurous stories that relied on scientific invention
to carry his protagonists to the moon or the centre of the earth.
The success of these novels helped popularize the emerging genre and inspired many within
both the literary and scientific communities.
Our last stop is English writer H.G Wells, whose socially-conscious brand of sci-fi used
fantastic ideas to comment on modern society.
His two most popular works, The Time Machine and War of the Worlds, examined class and
British imperialism respectively, while The Island of Doctor Moreau looked at animal cruelty
and the effect we have on nature.
The work of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells inspired much of what we are about to discuss.
Now we talked about the dime novel in our history of the cowboy video, which this very
much feels like a spiritual successor to, but to recap, this was America’s first form
of mass media specifically targeting the working class.
They were affordable and easily digestible books that presented sensational stories aiming
to entertain rather than enrich.
With advancements in paper processing and printing techniques, it became faster and
more affordable to churn out low cost magazines.
In the late 19th century, dime publishers began converting to a new format printed on
pulp paper.
The first pulp magazine, or pulp, was Frank Munsey’s Argosy in 1896.
This was extremely successful and lead to other publishers following suit, most notably
Street and Smith.
Their pulp, The Popular Magazine, introduced perhaps the most enduring feature of the pulps,
the dramatic, full-colour cover.
Many early pulps consisted of generic fiction, to appeal to a mass audience, be they short
or serialized stories.
This meant adventure and romance stories would appear in the same issue as a detective or
horror story.
The earliest example I could find of a niche pulp was Munsey’s Railroad Man’s Magazine
in 1906, though Street and Smith are often credited with segmenting fiction genres into
individual, specialized magazines.
In 1919, they launched The Thrill Book.
Though the stories contained were promoted as unusual or unclassifiable, by today’s
standards many would be considered science fiction.
It was edited first by Harold Hersey followed by Ronald Oliphant.
Under Oliphant, Thrill Book leaned further into the fantasy and sci-fi genres, the most
prominent piece being Francis Stevens’ The Heads of Cerberus.
After only 9 months, The Thrill Book ceased publication.
This is generally attributed to poor sales as well as a printers’ strike.
J.C. Henneberger and J.M Lansinger founded the Rural Publishing Corporation of Chicago
in 1922.
Previously, Henneberger had published the successful College Humor, and together with
Lansinger launched Weird Tales in 1923.
Even though the pulp was intended to showcase fantasy and horror stories, the first editor,
Edwin Baird, had a background in crime fiction and very little interest or knowledge in the
intended subject matter.
This notwithstanding, he did acquire early stories from H.P.
Lovecraft before being replaced by Farnsworth Wright the following year.
Wright expanded the editorial boundaries of Weird Tales and began building a stable of
writers and artists that contributed to the magazine's identity.
These included Conan the Barbarian creator Robert E. Howard, Greye La Spina and Margaret
Brundage, who illustrated many of the iconic covers, particularly the ones with naked women.
Weird Tales also has the distinction of publishing the first professional writing of a 16-year
old Tennessee Williams.
Wright promoted science fiction stories because, still, there was no American magazine specifically
dedicated to it.
This changed in 1926 with the launch of Hugo Gernsback’s Amazing Stories.
Gernsback was an inventor and publisher with a background in radio and electronics, mostly
in an amateur capacity.
In 1908, he began publishing Modern Electrics, dubbed the electrical magazine for everybody.
It consisted of information on parts and other aspects of amateur radio though Gernsback
would eventually use the magazine to publish his own science fiction.
He sold the magazine and founded The Electrical Experimenter, a similar concept, in 1913.
Under the umbrella of Experimenter Publishing, Hugo and his brother Sydney would go on to
publish other magazines as well as operate a radio station, WRNY, beginning in 1925.
Broadcasting from the Roosevelt Hotel, they utilized the station for cross-promoting their
magazines and experimentation, including one of the first television transmissions.
With the publication of Amazing Stories, Gernsback wrote himself in the history of sci-fi alongside
H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, quite literally.
A lot of the early content contained in Amazing were reprints or serializations from these
authors as well as his original work, which was said to be terrible.
Gernsback was notoriously cheap and would often pay contributors late or not at all,
leading many established writers to avoid submitting.
While this all may sound negative, Amazing Stories was extremely influential in the early
development of science fiction, or scientifiction as Gernsback called it.The over-the-top covers,
illustrated by Frank R. Paul, informed the aesthetics of the genre while the Discussions
column allowed readers to interact with one another, encouraging and creating a community,
effectively giving birth to science fiction fandom, for better or worse.
Now, not only did Hugo Gernsback have issues paying his contributors, he also had issues
paying the printers.
He would lose control of his assets, including Amazing Stories, following a bankruptcy lawsuit
in early 1929.
The magazine didn’t miss an issue, however, and is one of the few from the pulp era that
continues to this day.
Gernsback would immediately begin publishing two new magazines, Science Wonder Stories
and Air Wonder Stories, that would be merged in Wonder Stories in 1930.
That same year, Astounding Stories of Super-Science debuted.
Originally published by William Clayton, it was sold to Street & Smith in 1933.
Astounding paid considerably higher than Amazing, allowing them to publish distinguished authors,
like Jack Williamson and John W. Campbell.
Like many, Campbell began his career by selling to Amazing Stories.
Astounding would serialize his novel, The Mightiest Machine, in 1935 and in 1937 offer
him a position as editor.
His acceptance is considered to be the dawn of The Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Campbell worked with several authors synonymous with the genre and helped develop the talent
that defines it to this day.
These included Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov, whose first story also appeared
in Amazing Stories.
The late-30s were a boom period for science fiction and many pulps emerged to capitalize
on its popularity.
While these competitors were mainly focusing on the sensational aspects of sci-fi, Campbell
wanted to present stories that were more mature and of a scientific nature.
Many of these contributors, Asimov, Heinlein, had a background in science and could add
legitimacy to their stories.
This would come to be known as “hard” sci-fi, and some authors were so successful
in their realism, the FBI raided Astounding’s offices following the publication of Cleve
Cartmull’s Deadline, due to its similarity to the Manhattan Project.
One author Campbell was particularly fond of was L. Ron Hubbard.
He not only published Hubbard’s fiction but helped develop his therapeutic techniques.
In the late 1940s, Hubbard approached Campbell with a new form of therapy he coined Dianetics.
It was similar to psychoanalysis where people would purge themselves of past trauma by reliving
it.
Campbell believed in dianetics so much so, that he not only got Hubbard in touch with
a doctor they hoped could legitimize the process, but also recruited science fiction fans to
test out the theories.
These theories were widely ridiculed, not only by the medical community but also those
close to Campbell, including Williamson, Asimov, and Alfred Bester, who refused to have his
work published in Astounding due to Campbell’s involvement in dianetics.
This did not stop Campbell from promoting and publishing Hubbard’s articles on dianetics,
which would become the basis of the Church of Scientology just a short time later.
Astounding was the first of the sci-fi pulps to convert to digest size, and was followed
by many over the next couple of years, bringing an end to the period we are going to discuss.
The advent of the paperback and the acceptance of science fiction by larger literary publishers
also contributed to the decline of pulp fiction.
However, the genre was never hotter and these authors could find plenty of work writing
for movies or the new medium of television.
Science fiction continues to have a loyal following and many magazines are published
to this day, be it in print or online.
Now this was not meant to be an exhaustive history but hopefully it gives you a decent
overview pulp and science fiction.
I’m no expert, so if I missed anything feel free to correct or comment down below.
If you enjoyed it, give us a thumbs up, subscribe if you haven’t, and again, this video was
requested on our Patreon, patreon.com/picsnportraits, so if you like what we do and want to support
us, you can do so there.
I’m Brian Clarke, thank you so much for watching.